Atheists & Agnostics

He was a rabblerouser, spending his time with the disenfranchised and despised. His main enemy wasn't the Roman occupation, it was the cadre of self appointed arbiters of Jewish law and morality and he managed to piss them off enough that they appealed to the Romans to have him whacked, if any of the NT is to be believed.

Some of the fragmentary Gnostic Gospels, suppressed by the Council of Nicea, might have been more contemporary sources, but they didn't serve Empire as well as the stuff that made it into the NT. The Coptic Church has gospels that fill in the missing years from 12-30 with tales of a child learning to control godlike powers. They didn't make the cut, either.

I'm an atheist. I read this stuff to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I hadn't.

The early sect was among the poor. The symbol was the fish, not the cross. The ROTAS square appeared outside houses, probably the ones where meetings featuring bread and wine were held. People too poor to expect much out of life were assured of later reward that disqualified the rich and that was cause for celebration. Of course, the rich hated that idea.

Jesus didn't morph into Christ until the emperor Constantine realized if he killed off all the Jesus cultists, there would be no one left to do all the shitwork. Apollo became Zeus, orthodoxy and hierarchy were established, and the joy went out of it as the rich were finally able to bribe their way into heaven, offering the oppressed no relief from their oppressors.

That's what I mean about the early church being a joyful one, while the imperial church was not.